my task manager wont open says it's being used

Ive been useing this same laptop for about three mounths now. I have reformated it about three times as well. So i know it inside and out. I rely on my task manager to tell me what my baby is doing and to tell it what it can do. I feel like i have a car with no key here. I read in another thread that you could access your task mgr in your c:\windows\system32. that helped, but didn't solve the problem. it told me that it was in use whatever the hell that ment. I tried running it in the DOS cmd. It told me the same thing. Back to me reformating I have always used it and i have just got my comp up and running and the ctr + alt + dlt isn't working it just sits there. so i would like to figure out how to get it :hotbounce back without reformating. I'm getting tired of it.

Well I guess that is essentially the same thing, but it doesn't really answer my question as to why my ctr+ alt+ dlt wont access the task manager. that should be a default setting but my computer says that its being used. im not understanding.

I downloaded that program to replace the task manager. I went to the file properties of the system and told it to replace the task manager. well i closed the program thinkning i was done with it. i wanted to go back into it. well the only way i think i can do that is to redownload it. This is really starting to piss me off. I want one simple program to run and it's giving me ****. some help would be greatly appreciated.. thank you